[CAUT] sostenuto history - Montal

[Fred Sturm]

	For any interested, I got a copy of Claude Montal's book (an early  
predecessor of Braid White's Piano Tuning and Allied Arts, one might  
say, perhaps the first attempt to lay out the practical principles of  
piano tuning and repair), and it was published in 1836 (not 1856 as  
reported in my last post), and says nothing about a sostenuto pedal.  
Further research at Groves on-line (a major music encyclopedia)  
reveals that Montal exhibited a sostenuto system in 1862 in London.  
And the same article names three others who had supposedly come up  
with devices along the same lines prior to Montal. So there you have  
it, the inception of the sostenuto pedal, which probably would have  
disappeared along with the bassoon and sourdine pedals and the like  
had it not been for Steinway adopting it. FWIW.
	Montal's book is fascinating. He was writing before the time of the  
double escapement, when the single escapement was what you found on  
better pianos, and yet what he has to say seems so familiar in so many  
ways. The profession has come a long way, but remains to a large  
degree precisely the same as it was 150 years ago.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu